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Reuters

An Israeli intelligence dossier that prompted a cascade of countries to halt funds for a UN Palestinian aid agency includes allegations that some staff took part in abductions and killings during the October 7 raid that sparked the Gaza war.
The six-page dossier, seen by Reuters, alleges that some 190 UNRWA employees, including teachers, have doubled as Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants. It has names and pictures for 11 them.
The United Nations has not formally received a copy of the dossier, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday.
The Palestinians have accused Israel of falsifying information to tarnish UNRWA, which says it has fired some staffers and is investigating the allegations.

The dossier said one of the 11 is a school counsellor who helped his son abduct a woman during the Hamas infiltration in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 253 kidnapped.
Another, an UNRWA social worker, is accused of unspecified involvement in the transfer to Gaza of a slain Israeli soldier’s corpse and of coordinating the movements of pick-up trucks used by the raiders and of weapons supplies.
What is UNRWA, the main aid provider in Gaza that Israel accuses of militant links?
A third Palestinian in the dossier is accused of taking part in a rampage in the Israeli border village Beeri, one-tenth of whose residents were killed.
A fourth is accused of participating in an attack on Reim, site both of an army base that was overrun and a rave where more than 360 revellers died.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini should go. “UNRWA employees participated in the massacre of October 7,” he said. “Lazzarini should draw conclusions and resign.”
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh accused Israel of a “premeditated political attack” on the agency, which it has long criticised, and called for restoration of aid funds.
The dossier was shown to Reuters by a source who could not be identified by name or nationality. The source said that it had been compiled by Israeli intelligence and shared with the United States, which on Friday suspended funding for UNRWA.
An Israeli official told Reuters the 190 mentioned in the dossier were “hardened fighters, killers” whereas overall some 10 per cent of UNRWA staff were believed to have more general affiliation with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The agency employs 13,000 people in Gaza. More than 10 countries, including major donors the United States and Germany, have halted their funding to the agency.
That is a huge problem for an agency that more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians look to for day-to-day assistance, and which has already been hard-stretched by Israel’s war on Hamas in the enclave.
UNRWA said on Monday it would be unable to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding were not resumed.
America is neck deep in Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was due to meet with major UNRWA donors in New York on Tuesday, Dujarric said.
Guterres spoke on Monday with the leaders of Jordan and Egypt and also met with the head of UN internal investigations to ensure that an inquiry into the Israeli accusations “will be done swiftly and as efficiently as possible,” Dujarric said.
Washington would be looking very hard at the steps UNRWA takes in response to the allegations, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, describing the allegations as “highly credible” and “deeply, deeply troubling”.




Asked under what circumstances and how soon the US could consider resuming support for UNRWA, Blinken said: “It is imperative that UNRWA immediately, as it said it would, investigate, that it hold people accountable as necessary, and that it review its procedures”.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency was set up for refugees of the 1948 war at Israel’s founding in what had been British-ruled Palestine. It also tends to millions of the original refugees’ descendants in Palestinian territories and abroad.
Israel has long accused UNRWA of perpetuating conflict by discouraging resettlement of refugees and on occasions in the past has said agency staff took part in armed attacks.
UNRWA denies wrongdoing, describing its role as relief only.
“From intelligence information, documents and identity cards seized during the course of the fighting, it is now possible to flag around 190 Hamas and PIJ terrorist operatives who serve as UNRWA employees,” the Hebrew-language dossier says.
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It accuses Hamas of “methodically and deliberately deploying its terrorist infrastructure in a wide range of UN facilities and assets” including schools. Hamas denies that.
Two of the alleged Hamas operatives cited in the dossier are described as “eliminated”, or killed by Israeli forces. A 12th Palestinian whose name and picture are provided is said to have no factional membership and to have infiltrated Israel on October 7.
Also in the list of 12 men are an UNRWA teacher accused of arming himself with an anti-tank rocket, another teacher accused of filming a hostage and the manager of a shop in an UNRWA school accused of opening a war-room for Islamic Jihad.
More than 26,000 people have been killed in Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, the enclave’s health ministry said. With flows of aid like food and medicine just a trickle of pre-conflict levels, deaths from preventable diseases as well as risk of famine are growing, aid workers say.
Most of Gaza’s people have become more reliant on UNRWA aid, including about one million who have fled Israeli bombardments to shelter in its facilities.


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Israel-Gaza war

As war rages in Gaza, Israel accuses 190 UN staff of being ‘hardened’ militants

Israeli soldiers in a Hamas tunnel underneath a cemetery in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Photo: AP



An Israeli army tank takes up position as Palestinians arrive in the southern Gaza town of Rafah after fleeing Khan Younis. Photo: AP

Displaced Palestinians receive food aid at UNRWA centre in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: AFP

What is UNRWA, the main aid provider in Gaza that Israel accuses of militant links?

Palestinians arrive in the southern Gaza town of Rafah after fleeing an Israeli ground and air offensive in the nearby city of Khan Younis. Photo: AP

Displaced Palestinians receive food aid at the UNRWA centre in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: AFP

The aftermath of the October 7 attack by Hamas militants on Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel. File photo: Reuters

Israel-Gaza war: UN agency under fire after October 7 involvement claims

A truck, marked with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) logo, crosses into Egypt from Gaza, at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on November 27, 2023. Photo: Reuters

Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz has said UNRWA “must be replaced with agencies dedicated to genuine peace and development” in the rebuilding of Gaza. Photo: AFP

Palestinians carry bags of flour they grabbed from an aid truck near an Israeli checkpoint, as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini has been asked to resign over allegations 12 staff members were accused of taking part in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. Photo: AFP

Protesters lift portraits of Israelis held hostage by Hamas militants in Gaza since October 7, during a rally demanding their release outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea, north of Tel Aviv, on Saturday. Photo: AFP

People wait for food relief in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on December 31, 2023. Photo: Xinhua

Internally displaced Palestinians move past Israeli tanks as they head towards Rafah camps near the Egyptian border, southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Israel vows to stop UNRWA’s activities in Gaza after war following sacking of staff

Children gather in front of a building destroyed by Israeli bombing in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Children rest as Palestinians fleeing Khan Younis, due to the Israeli ground operation, move towards Rafah in Gaza on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

Israel-Gaza war: UN agency sacks staff suspected of role in October 7 Hamas attacks

Palestinian refugees, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, warm themselves by a fire at a tent camp in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday. Photo: Reuters

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks at the UN Headquarters on Tuesday. Photo: AP

News

World

Middle East

Multiple donors have cut funds to UN Relief and Works Agency after accusations
Intelligence dossier alleges some UNRWA staff took part in the October 7 rampage


Intelligence dossier offers new details to undergird Israel’s long-standing accusation that UNRWA is deeply connected to and sometimes works in concert with Hamas.


Israel

War and conflict

United Nations

Islamic militancy

As war rages in Gaza, Israel accuses 190 UN staff of being ‘hardened’ militants

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Multiple donors have cut funds to UN Relief and Works Agency after accusations Intelligence dossier alleges some UNRWA staff took part in the October 7 rampage

Multiple donors have cut funds to UN Relief and Works Agency after accusations

Intelligence dossier alleges some UNRWA staff took part in the October 7 rampage